Squeezed in a quick visit to the fortified town of Aigues Mortes on the edge of the Camargue National Park. The town is on the flat and completely hidden by massive ramparts. As you enter the town you wonder if you have stepped back in time or perhaps dropped into a different world.
The Camargue’s vast wetland is an invaluable environment for a wide range of plant and animal life and the production of salt on the marshes at Aigues Mortes provides an additional dimension to the ecosystem.
Salt has been produced at Aigues Mortes since the Roman times. The salt farmers fill enormous ponds with sea water and, with the help of the wind and the sun and some clever drainage, the sea water evaporates to leave water saturated with salt and finally this crystallizes to form a salt cake which can be harvested.
The salt lakes spread out in a beautiful spectrum of pinks. Brine shrimps are one of the few species able to live in this highly concentrated sea water and these tiny pink shrimps, beloved of hungry flamingos, give the pink colour to the flamingos’ feathers.
Today the operation covers an area similar to the size of Paris (or 13,000 football pitches if you prefer) and the marshes are criss-crossed by over 340km of roads and tracks.
Unfortunately the only way to actually visit this area is by tourist train. We chose the stormiest, windiest day and the latest possible train with the grumpiest driver in the world. Added to that, we sat at the rear of the train with our backs to the direction of travel. The tour lasted an interminable 75 minutes of vertebrae-smashing, knee-knocking, eye-smarting agony.
But the views were stunning (for the first ten minutes).
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| Walls of Aigues Mortes in the distance |
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| Too cold for a flamingo today! |
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